


A Plain Thought

by thelma_throwaway



Series: The How-It-Was [1]
Category: Firefly, Serenity
Genre: Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/M, Partners in Crime, Porn With Plot, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:34:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22127212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelma_throwaway/pseuds/thelma_throwaway
Summary: She decides he done it to get a rise out of her. Fair was fair. She’d done what she done to get a rise out of him.River and Jayne kill some time dirtside after a job.
Relationships: Jayne Cobb/River Tam
Series: The How-It-Was [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592782
Comments: 2
Kudos: 57





	1. 1.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own etc., post-Serenity, everyone is a consenting adult
> 
> Def an 18+ tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her thumb on his lip, her thumb on the safety.

It started as a slow, tight circling. Impossible to tease out where that first frayed edge appeared in the how-it-was and things sheared headlessly through the fabric of time into the right-now. A many coiled spiral, drawing closer and closer until--

Sometimes a plain thought serves best.

They’re killing time, drinking rice liquor from pinched clay cups. Jayne holds his like a daisy head between the thumb and forefinger, River’s nestled on top of a loose fist as if she’s going to flip it like a coin. Its cold and dim in the bar, a single halogen flickering under a fog of dirty smoke. 

“Any word?” Jayne refills their cups.

“ _Mei guanxi_ ,” she answers. “We’re early.”

“Not good to linger. Even if’n we finished ahead. Folks get sour once you got their gold.”

“Do you want to hold the comm?” She smirks behind the clay cup. “You’ve asked me near on 10 times now. I’ll hold the shooter.” 

“Nevermind,” he growls. Another glass milk bottle of rice liquor appears on their table. “Reckon I’ll just enjoy myself then, huh?”

River holds out her cup for more and he makes a big show of shooting two cupfuls down his throat before filling it. He’s grumbling complaints to no one while she studies the clay vessels. They’re handmade, hasty and irregular, the deep ridges of the makers thumb prints grooving the insides. The liquor is of similar craftsmanship-- cloudy but tasteless except for the halo burn on the soft palate and down the throat.

The cup, the bar, the liquor, the company--- it’s nice. 

A plain thought. River chews the thick, frothy words that darts through her mind after it. The kind that mean very much in a heavy old book and very little in lean-to smugglers’ town on the rim of known humanity. A gold coin type of word. Something like--the cool inbetween. The space where a cold hand presses against a fevered forehead. 

She sips her drink to keep her thoughts from dribbling out of her mouth. She’s trying not to be so weird. To blend in. Down to the trim trousers and leather jacket favored by most in this part of the ‘verse. 

Then--- faintly through the soles of her boots she feels it. She drains the rest of the bottle into Jayne’s cup. A ripple beats in it, the light above them begins to swing imperceptibly.

“Finish your drink, Jayne.”

“Huh? They call?” His drink is halfway between the table and his mouth, arm flexed and tense as the other feels for the day’s prize-- a bag of gold rods snugged next to his ribs. “We out?”

“No.”

“Them pants cuttin’ of yer circulation, girly?”

She shuffles a few coins out of her sleeve and onto the table. “Enjoyment over.” 

“Now wait just a gorram---”

River slides up from the table and in the bare fraction of a moment, pushes the drink to his mouth to empty it, tosses the clay cup aside, and wipes a bead of liquor from his bottom lip with the broadside of her thumb. 

On later review, safe in his bunk, the combination is devastating. 

“Time to go,” she says, drawing him by the lapel up from his chair and out of the back entrance of the bar. 

In the alleyway an electrical storm crackles above, behind them the clatter of boots and pistols, muffled yells, and an explosive flash that busts out every window on the building.

“Good call, _mei mei_.” Jayne shakes free of her small fist on his collar. “Hey-- you ain’t losta step with all them treemints.”

She lets herself enjoy a shiver of unexpected delight--- a half compliment in another halfway place, a sandswept alley between fire fights. Few would lament the abatement of her psychosis as a sorry trade-off for her fighting instincts.

“That’s why they haven’t called.” River nods up at the forks of lightning crisscrossing the sky. “No way to land the boat, no way to send a message.”

“No cover, no time to talk.” He draws his pistol from the darkness under his coat. Then after a pause, pulls out another and hands it to River. “Mind the safety.”

He leads them through the muddy maze of streets, his logic scattershot and fuzzed with liquor. River has already spun a map of the town in her mind. She follows the seismic rumble of boots as they streak towards the pair, tracking their nearness by the angle of the hair sticking up on the back of her neck.

“Here.” She darts into a junkyard, wending her way through the stacks of machine parts looking for a snug spot. Jayne is two steps behind her, the boots are just a few behind him.

“Forget the hideyhole,” he snaps, breathing heavy. He lifts her by the waist and plops her down on top of an ancient thresher, his back to the oncoming boots. “Draw your weapon ‘n act horny.”

He leans over her and she wraps her legs around his middle, a hand draped over his neck. From behind they might look like an amorous couple. Between them, River’s heart thumps with anticipation and she holds the borrowed pistol tight against her chest.

“Hey! Uh--” The boots clatter to a stop a few yards away. River counts them by the huffing of their lungs.

“Do ya mind?” Jayne turns back to snipe, “Tryin’ to have a moment with my lady.”

River covers her face with demurely, trying to stifle a laugh.

“Naw-- that’s them!” someone yells and there’s the _click-click-click_ of the assembled guns drawing a bead on them.

River levers herself up by the hand Jayne’s broad shoulder, the same thumb that wiped his lip is now just as gently sliding off the safety. A moment later she’s spent the six chambers and they are alone again.

Jayne rubs at his ringing ear and lifts her down off the thresher. “Tell ya what, yer provin’ to be real handy… finally. Now uh… no need to tell the cap’n about that little con at the end. The horny stuff, you know.”

“Airlock.” She feels giddy with adrenaline, the feeling of the bullets combusting under her palm still thrumming up and down her arm. River holds the pistol out to him, her wrist flicking back at the last moment as a sly idea crosses her face. “Or…”

“No. Yah can’t have her.” He grabs the gun, one large hand enveloping the shooter and her fingers and wrist. She lets go without a fight. 

“Can I have a knife then?”

“No.”

“I already took one.” From nowhere she produces a slim butterfly-knife he’d lifted off a stiff on Persephone, mother of pearl handles and a long, tricky blade nestled inside. A good fighting knife.

Jayne grunts and shakes his head. “Keep it.”

The storm is breaking, and the comm on River’s hip crackles to life-- _comin’ in quick, hope you kids are ready for the pick up._

Jayne gives out a whoop. “Hey! This wern’t half bad. Stretched my legs, had a drink, got a big bag a--” 

Jayne feels or the bag of rods they’ve extracted from their client, his eyes bugging wide as his fingers find nothing but the fabric of his t-shirt.

“I have it,” River pipes hastily. “Don’t be mad.” 

She meets his eyes as she reaches a pale hand under the waistband of her trousers and draws out the small sackcloth bag. “I thought it would be more secure than your jacket.”

“That’s what the pockets are for.” Slack jawed, Jayne accepts it in his upturned hand.

River in her tight pants, stolen knife clutched in her hand, the warm bag his palm, the rice liquor, her thumb on his lip, her thumb on the safety. 

His eyes go large and dark, still staring intently into River’s. Jayne’s mouth quirks into a grin. Her throat is dry. He draws the bag up to his nose, taking one slow, satisfied sniff.

Serenity lands unsteadily on the other side of the junkyard’s back wall. River doesn’t look away from him, eyes clear and focused on the inside of his brain. 

“Best get you back at the helm, _sha gua_.”

Jayne boosts her up over the wall and then follows behind. The ramp is half down and they jump on at a run just as more gunmen pour out of the town like ants, scraping their boots with bullets. 

“Take it things went well?” Mal is waiting for them in the cockpit. Simon paces just out of sight.

“Shiny,” giggles River as she takes the pilots chair from him. She’s enjoying the secret press of her new knife against her hipbone, the faint glow of the mudtown moonshine in her belly.

“Jayne? Any complaints?” Jayne empties the bag into the captain’s hand and keeps it crumpled in his fist. He gets no questions on it. Mal is already counting.

“Good liquor. You know where I’ll be.”

River twists to watch him leave the cockpit. She noses the ship up out of atmo and into the black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mandarin is approximate and to the best of my limited language ability.
> 
> Mei guanxi= don't worry  
> meimei= little sister  
> shagua= dummy (affectionate, literally 'dumb egg')


	2. II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She feels with her own fingertips again, letting herself belong to herself.
> 
> Then, without much prompting, she conjures Jayne

After she bathes but before she slips a cotton nightdress over her head, River closes her eyes and lets her hands wander. 

She’s draped scarves and tapestries around her room to hide the sterile walls. On every surface are the shiny, pretty things she’s bought and pilfered since she started getting a cut from jobs. Its starting to feel like her’s, even more comfortable than sleeping under the ship’s undulating engines or in the smuggler’s hatch. She feels with her own fingertips again, letting herself belong to herself.

It helps that her brother has moved in to Kaylee’s quarters. Now she can let herself expand, untie every knotted thought keeping her in girl-form instead of having to hold it all together. Constricted for the comfort of others. Lying on her bed she lets them run over her, some soft and skittish as spiders, some heavy and sharp. 

Cold, hot, big, small. Until she’s thought every thought she can think. And around the edges, always the dark shadows two-by-two, just barely kept at bay. 

Then, without much prompting, she conjures Jayne. 

Her blood is still running fast from the day. She had done all her favorite things-- run, kill, pretend to be a real girl. Sitting in a dusty bar, sipping rotgut shoju wasn’t a debutantes ball. It certainly wasn’t what had been expected of core-bred young ladies. Closer to the one she’d been programmed to lead. But it was better than either of them. It belonged to a woman she might like to be. A woman who killed time with her butterfly knife.

She sees him as if she is floating over him in his bunk. She can feel the cool metal against her back, smell the gun oil warmed by rack lights. But she can’t decide-- is he scrolling through a ‘verses worth of dirty videos on his cheap little cortex, trying to find just the right looking girl? Is he stroking himself with one hand, the little cloth bag she’d hidden at the juncture of her thighs clenched in the other? Is he conjuring her too?

She rolls over their moment in the scrapyard in her mind, letting it melt luscious and slow over her. The cool inbetween, after the gunfight but before the rescue. The exact pressure and temperature of his hands on her waist. The angle of his brow and lips when he oh-so-casually sniffed. She’d planned to take the bag the moment she laid eyes on it, just to show him she could. It looked like treasure. But sliding it down the front of those gorram trousers had been impulse-- no, inspiration. She’d known she would have to hand it over at some point. 

“Ha!” She laughs aloud at the thought of presenting the bag to the captain the way she had to Jayne. Spontaneous combustion. It would have killed them all.

Jayne had acted just as dirty as he would have with anyone else. The frank way he’d held her eyes when he raised the bag, like he was about to laugh, like he was going to eat her. 

“Only teasing,” she murmurs, deciding he’d done it to get a rise out of her. Fair was fair. She’d done what she done to get a rise out of him. 

Now she lets her hands go exploring, wondering what could happen. She sees herself in his bunk, sliding alongside him and running her fingers down his cheek, his chest, his stomach.He lifts her dress--no, she wasn’t wearing one when she came in. The element of surprise. But---unknown, if he’d really be surprised if she came naked into his bunk. 

The River in Jayne’s bed is wearing a dress, she decides, but not panties. That would be the surprise. From above she watches him lift her skirt, growl as his fingers traces the bare skin there and pull her close. She hears her own hungry noises when he kisses a bruising trail down her throat and breasts, rolling her onto her back by the hand in her hair. She smells the rice liquor on his breath as he nips at her body and cursing in a low steady stream across down her.

“... _ ta ma de… wo yaosile _ …”

River, real River, lets out a long moan. Her fingers dip into the warm, slick fold between her legs. She tries to imagine Jayne’s hands-- real hands on her real body

But all she can feel is the exact pressure and temperature of his hand on her clothed waist when he lifts her off an old thresher. For a two-second con, to buy some time to save his own skin. He hadn’t even tried to cop a feel when he boosted her over the wall-- he’d knelt with his hands like a little basket on his knee and vaulted her up by the foot. “Teasing. Teasing you.”

From here the fantasy deflates quickly. She can’t keep herself in his bed, the other River rolls off and away and he just laughs. From above she hangs around to watch him shift onto his back, chuckling to himself as guides his own hand down to the tight black undershorts she’s dressed him in. He starts to stroke himself for the faded ladies he’s taped over his bed--- fingers on lips, waists contorted to maintain view of the maximum amount of tits while revealing the maximum amount of ass. They all held weapons, big meaty rifles or huge stiff swords. 

“Torturing yourself,  _ shazi _ ,” she admonishes herself. She takes one last peek at the Jayne she’s imagined, gratifying himself to the  _ Guns and Girls _ centerfolds. But when she looks down at him, he’s looking up at her. And the bewildered expression on his face suggests he sees her too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ta ma de...wo yaosile= Fuck...I'm going to Hell  
> shazi= fool


	3. Epilogue

Sometime around midnight, confused as hell and brain on fire, Jayne Cobb rises from his bunk and starts doing push-ups.

Up, hold, down, hold.”One.” Up, hold, down, hold. “Two.” Up, hold, down, hold. “Three.”

After 107, the fog begins to lift and he begins to see things plainer.

“I’m still drunk,” he assures himself. It would be a handy explanation. 

Up, hold, down, hold.

“I could even be” Up, hold, down, hold. “Drunker” Up, hold, down, hold. “If’n I wanted.” 

He drinks some engine wine but it just makes his headache worse. He gets back into his bunk and tries again. Even uses the little voices he’d made up in his head for the gals on his ceiling, let them tell him what all they’d like to do. When he’s good and hard he looks up at them, but can’t shake the feeling he had earlier when he’d cleaned his gun. Like it was River above him, running her thumb over his lip. 

He comes, more frustrated than before. He needs more than just the pressure of her thighs on his waist, her hand on his neck, the second hand warm on his palm.

Jayne rolls from his bed and tries again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Wow I haven't written ff in a decade and then this just poured out of me this weekend. I missed it!


End file.
